Parity dependent Josephson current through a helical Luttinger liquid

We consider a superconductor-two dimensional topological insulator- superconductor junction (S-2DTI-S) and study how the 2{\pi}- and 4{\pi}-periodic Josephson currents are affected by the electron-electron interaction. In the long-junction limit the supercurrent can by evaluated by modeling the system as a helical Luttinger liquid coupled to superconducting reservoirs. After having introduced bosonization in the presence of the parity constraint we turn to consider the limit of perfect and poor interfaces. For transparent interfaces, where perfect Andreev reflections occur at the boundaries, the Josephson current is marginally affected by the interaction. On the contrary, if strong magnetic scatterers are present in the weak link, the situation changes dramatically. Here Coulomb interaction plays a crucial role both in low and high temperature regimes. Furthermore, a phase-shift of Josephson current can be induced by changing the direction of the magnetization of the impurity

Hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy and chronic kidney disease.

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a cardiovascular complication highly prevalent in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease. LVH in CKD patients has generally a negative prognostic value, because it represents an independent risk factor for the development of arrhythmias, sudden death, heart failure and ischemic heart disease. LVH in CKD patients is secondary to both pressure and volume overload. Pressure overload is secondary to preexisting hypertension, but also to a loss of elasticity of the vessels and to vascular calcifications, leading to augmented pulse pressure. Anemia and the retention of sodium and water secondary to decreased renal function are responsible for volume overload, determining a hyperdynamic state. In particular, the correction of anemia with erythropoietin in CKD patients is advantageous, since it determines LVH reduction. Other risk factors for LVH in CKD patients are documented: some are specific to CKD, as mineral metabolism disorders (hypocalcemia, hyperphosphatemia, low serum vitamin D levels and secondary hyperparathyroidism), others are non-traditional, such as increased asymmetric dimethylarginine, oxidative stress, hyperhomocysteinemia and endothelial dysfunction that, in turn, accelerates the process of atherogenesis, triggers the inflammation and pro-thrombotic state of the glomerular and the vascular endothelium and aggravates the process of both CKD and LVH

Establishment of a Bovine Herpesvirus 4 based vector expressing a secreted form of the Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus structural glycoprotein E2 for immunization purposes

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.Abstract Background The biological characteristics of BoHV-4 make it a good candidate as a gene delivery vector for vaccination purposes. These characteristics include little or no pathogenicity, unlikely oncogenicity, the capability to accommodate large amounts of foreign genetic material, the ability to infect several cell types from different animal species, and the ability to maintain transgene expression in both undifferentiated and differentiated cells. Results A recombinant bovine herpesvirus 4 (BoHV-4CMV-IgKE2-14ΔTK) expressing an enhanced secreted form of the bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) structural glycoprotein E2 (gE2-14), obtained by the removal of the putative transmembrane domain and addition of a 14 amino acids peptide at its carboxyl terminal and an immunoglobulin K signal peptide to the amino terminal, was successfully constructed using a Recombineering (recombination -mediated genetic engineering) approach on BoHV-4 cloned as bacterial artificial chromosome. The galactokinase – based recombineering system was modified by the introduction of a kanamycin expression cassette and a kanamycin selection step that allowed a significant reduction of the untargeted background clones. BoHV-4CMV-IgKE2-14ΔTK infected cell lines highly expressed gE2-14, which maintained native antigenic properties in a serum neutralization inhibition test. When rabbits and sheep were immunized with BoHV-4CMV-IgKE2-14ΔTK, high levels of serum neutralized antibodies against BVDV were generated. Conclusion This work highlights the engineerization of BoHV-4 genome as a vector for vaccine purposes and may provide the basis for BVDV vaccination exploiting the BoHV-4- based vector that delivers an improved secreted version of the BVDV structural glycoprotein E2.Published versio

Sviluppo di strumenti per l'ottimizzazione del progetto aerodinamico di turbomacchine assiali

La tesi propone un modello throughflow inverso da impiegare durante la fase assialsimmetrica del processo di progetto di una turbomacchina. Il modello risolve con tecnica time marching le equazioni meridiane di Eulero, nelle quali un campo di forza volumica normale alle superfici medie delle pale ("blade force") ne riproduce l'azione sul flusso. La geometria delle superfici è ricavata dalla condizione di tangenza, in accordo con la componente tangenziale della "blade force" imposta come dato di progetto. La distribuzione meridiana della blade force sulle regioni palettate del flowpath è definibile attraverso un processo di ottimizzazione inversa. Le equazioni di Eulero contengono anche altri termini destinati a riprodurre gli effetti del bloccaggio delle pale e delle perdite di profilo. La tesi affronta in particolare il problema delle alte deflessioni (pale di turbina), sia sotto l'aspetto fisico, individuando le più opportune condizioni al contorno da associare alle equazioni di Eulero, sia sotto l'aspetto numerico, introducendo uno schema upwind di tipo implicito per contrastare le instabilità che quelle condizioni comportano. Lo schema si rivela molto efficiente e robusto nel generare singole schiere di apertura infinita, non altrettanto se applicato a stadi di turbina completi. Per questa ragione, la tesi indaga anche la variante diretta del modello throughflow, che valuta la "blade force" (e perciò le prestazioni della macchina) a partire da un'assegnata geometria delle superfici medie. Pur con le sue limitazioni, il solutore inverso è ugualmente introdotto in ottimizzatori esistenti, allo scopo di illustrare alcuni esempi di ottimizzazione inversa per configurazioni fortemente defless

Optimized Cooper pair pumps

In adiabatic Cooper pair pumps, operated by means of gate voltage modulation only, the quantization of the pumped charge during a cycle is limited due to the quantum coherence of the macroscopic superconducting wave function. In this work we show that it is possible to obtain very accurate pumps in the non-adiabatic regime by a suitable choice of the shape of the gate voltage pulses. We determine the shape of these pulses by applying quantum optimal control theory to this problem. In the optimal case the error, with respect to the quantized value, can be as small as of the order of (10E-6)e: the error is reduced by up to five orders of magnitude with respect to the adiabatic pumping. In order to test the experimental feasibility of this approach we consider the effect of charge noise and the deformations of the optimal pulse shapes on the accuracy of the pump. Charge noise is assumed to be induced by random background charges in the substrate, responsible for the observed 1/f noise. Inaccuracies in the pulse shaping are described by assuming a finite bandwidth for the pulse generator. In realistic cases the error increases at most of one order of magnitude as compared to the optimal case. Our results are promising for the realization of accurate and fast superconducting pumps.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

Two years of flight of the Pamela experiment: results and perspectives

PAMELA is a satellite borne experiment designed to study with great accuracy cosmic rays of galactic, solar, and trapped nature in a wide energy range (protons: 80 MeV-700 GeV, electrons 50 MeV-400 GeV). Main objective is the study of the antimatter component: antiprotons (80 MeV-190 GeV), positrons (50 MeV-270 GeV) and search for antinuclei with a precision of the order of $10^{-8}$). The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite, was launched on June, $15^{th}$ 2006 in a $350\times 600 km$ orbit with an inclination of 70 degrees. In this work we describe the scientific objectives and the performance of PAMELA in its first two years of operation. Data on protons of trapped, secondary and galactic nature - as well as measurements of the December $13^{th}$ 2006 Solar Particle Event - are also provided.Comment: To appear on J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. as part of the proceedings of the International Workshop on Advances in Cosmic Ray Science March, 17-19, 2008 Waseda University, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japa

PAMELA results on the cosmic-ray antiproton flux from 60 MeV to 180 GeV in kinetic energy

The satellite-borne experiment PAMELA has been used to make a new measurement of the cosmic-ray antiproton flux and the antiproton-to-proton flux ratio which extends previously published measurements down to 60 MeV and up to 180 GeV in kinetic energy. During 850 days of data acquisition approximately 1500 antiprotons were observed. The measurements are consistent with purely secondary production of antiprotons in the galaxy. More precise secondary production models are required for a complete interpretation of the results.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Ultralong Organic Phosphorescence in the Solid State: The Case of Triphenylene Cocrystals with Halo- and Dihalo-penta/ tetrafluorobenzene

The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) triphenylene (TP) has been reacted with halo-pentafluorobenzene (XF5, X = Br, I) and 1,4-dihalo-tetrafluorobenzene (X2F4, X = Br, I) to yield the corresponding cocrystals TP·BrF5, TP·Br2F4, TP·IF5, and TP·I2F4 form I. These materials have been synthesized by dissolving TP into an excess of liquid or molten coformer, and single crystals have been grown via seeding chloroform solutions. They have been fully characterized by a combination of techniques including X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and luminescence spectroscopy in the solid state. TP·I2F4 form I was found to undergo a single-crystal to single-crystal (SCSC) polymorphic phase transition induced by temperature (when cooled down to 100 K) leading to the new form TP·I2F4 form II, which is transformed back into the first structure when brought again at RT. This behavior was confirmed also by Raman spectroscopy. Upon cocrystallization and as a result of the external heavy atom effect, all crystalline materials exhibited bright room temperature phosphorescence clearly visible by the naked eye. The latter was almost exclusive for cocrystal TP·I2F4, whereas for TP·Br2F4 both fluorescence and phosphorescence were detected. In TP·Br2F4, the phosphorescence lifetime was on the order of 200 ms, and with the visual outcome of an orange phosphorescence lasting for a couple of seconds upon ceasing the excitation, that makes this compound classifiable as an ultralong organic phosphorescent (UOP) material. The results evidenced the role of the nature of the heavy atom in governing the phosphorescence output from organic cocrystals

Launch of the Space experiment PAMELA

PAMELA is a satellite borne experiment designed to study with great accuracy cosmic rays of galactic, solar, and trapped nature in a wide energy range protons: 80 MeV-700 GeV, electrons 50 MeV-400 GeV). Main objective is the study of the antimatter component: antiprotons (80 MeV-190 GeV), positrons (50 MeV-270 GeV) and search for antimatter with a precision of the order of 10^-8). The experiment, housed on board the Russian Resurs-DK1 satellite, was launched on June, 15, 2006 in a 350*600 km orbit with an inclination of 70 degrees. The detector is composed of a series of scintillator counters arranged at the extremities of a permanent magnet spectrometer to provide charge, Time-of-Flight and rigidity information. Lepton/hadron identification is performed by a Silicon-Tungsten calorimeter and a Neutron detector placed at the bottom of the device. An Anticounter system is used offline to reject false triggers coming from the satellite. In self-trigger mode the Calorimeter, the neutron detector and a shower tail catcher are capable of an independent measure of the lepton component up to 2 TeV. In this work we describe the experiment, its scientific objectives and the performance in the first months after launch.Comment: Accepted for publication on Advances in Space Researc

EphA2 is a functional receptor for the growth factor progranulin.

Although the growth factor progranulin was discovered more than two decades ago, the functional receptor remains elusive. Here, we discovered that EphA2, a member of the large family of Ephrin receptor tyrosine kinases, is a functional signaling receptor for progranulin. Recombinant progranulin bound with high affinity to EphA2 in both solid phase and solution. Interaction of progranulin with EphA2 caused prolonged activation of the receptor, downstream stimulation of mitogen-activated protein kinase and Akt, and promotion of capillary morphogenesis. Furthermore, we found an autoregulatory mechanism of progranulin whereby a feed-forward loop occurred in an EphA2-dependent manner that was independent of the endocytic receptor sortilin. The discovery of a functional signaling receptor for progranulin offers a new avenue for understanding the underlying mode of action of progranulin in cancer progression, tumor angiogenesis, and perhaps neurodegenerative diseases